Absolute Corruption
by NotWhoYouThinkThisIs
Summary: Tom Marvolo Riddle always knew that he was great. Unfortunately Tom Riddle Sr. didn't... Oneshot about Tom Riddle Jr. becoming the most powerful wizard in history. R&R!


**Author's Note:**

**Justin:** So here's a Harry Potter one-shot that I wrote this time…

**Tequila:** I WANT YOU TO WRITE MORE TWILIGHT STUFF JUSTIN! YOU PROOOOOOOOOOOOOOMISED!!!

**Justin:** But Tequila—the muses! They speak to me! You must know what that's like!

**Tequila:** but, but, but… you promised. --eyes widen and lips quiver--

**Justin:** I know, I know, I'm sorry…

**Tequila:** SO WRITE SOMETHING TWILIGHT-Y AND FULL OF JASPER GOODNESS ALREADY OR I'LL TOSS YOU IN THE HYPOTHETICAL BABOON CHAMBER WITH OUR EX-CHEMISTRY TEACHER!

**Justin**: meep!

**Disclaimer: **If Harry Potter were ours, we'd have Voldemort slip on the magic banana peel of doom sometime in Harry's fourth year, so Sirius could live. We'd also have lots of lovely boy love, and toffee éclairs, and memos, and… --trails off for an indefinite period of time--

**Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely**

How dare he?

Those three words were circling through Tom Marvolo Riddle's head as he made his way to _'the big house over the way'_. It was as if his body had been taken over by some unknown force that was helping him manage the trek through overgrown and unkempt garden outside his uncle's—if he could really call that piece of filth an _uncle_— hovel. All Tom could really think about were those three words, while his vision swam with red and his body turned ice-cold. How dare he, how dare he, how dare he?

Tom saw, without really seeing, his arm reach out with his wand grasped firmly in his hand. He saw the jet of red light shoot out of the wand tip. He saw himself grabbing Morfin's wand and walking away. Now he saw himself whispering _Alohamora_ on the front door of his dear father's wealthy estate and walking past the threshold.

How dare he?

It was all he was aware of. His feelings of resentment, anger, fury, rage, and completely helpless rejection were all cumulating and expanding and combining into something _great_. He could feel it building, and he greedily welcomed the awesome power it brought. His father would have to answer to him now, because now Tom Riddle had the power, and he had finally found the person who left him—who had deserted him, as if he were no better than common street trash!— after all these years.

How dare he?

How dare he get left behind—_him! Left behind!_—when _he_ was going to be the greatest wizard of all time? How dare his father walk away, as if he weren't exceptional, as if he wasn't something worth keeping? How dare his father _do_ that, when _his darling dad_ was the pathetic, non-magical, boring, _ordinary_ one—not him. No, no, he was going to be great.

How dare he?

Tom Riddle saw himself walk into the drawing room of the big house. And that's when he started truly seeing for the first time since he learned his father had only been a few steps away. That's when he truly saw his father.

They looked extremely alike— a fact which only repulsed Tom Marvolo Riddle. Tom Riddle could have been him later on in life, succumbing to the weight of age and experience. That too, disgusted him. Only the weak _succumbed_. Only the weak died.

His mother had been weak.

How dare he?

He would _never_ be like his father.

It was clear to him that his father was weak, too. Maybe even weaker than his mortal mother, for he did not possess any magic whatsoever. Perhaps he was weaker than her because he had left the one thing that would have made him memorable.

He had given up Tom Marvolo Riddle, and that was going to be the biggest mistake of his ordinary, boring, mortal life.

But Tom Marvolo Riddle was not weak. He was the heir to Salazar Slytherin, he was one of the strongest wizards of his time, and he would learn how to stop death. He would never _succumb_.

He was no longer on autopilot. The force that had taken him over for a few minutes was gone, though his vision still swam with red. There were two older people behind his father, and all three of them were staring at him with shock. They clearly knew who he was, who he unfortunately had to be. They clearly weren't expecting him.

They were weak too.

How dare he?

Tom Riddle… such an _ordinary_ name. An ordinary, boring, non-magical, pathetic name— just like his father. Maybe at one point, the handsome sixteen-year old boy would have been happy to at least keep the name "Marvolo", which tied him to Salazar Slytherin, an ancestor he felt was actually worth having. But Marvolo also tied him to Morfin and his dead, weak mother. It was with a savage sense of relief and satisfaction that Tom Marvolo Riddle cast off the Muggle name bestowed upon him by his mother and took up a name of his own creation. A name, he felt, that was as great as he was going to be. A name that was as great as he _was_.

Tom Marvolo Riddle was now Lord Voldemort.

How dare he? How dare Tom Riddle reject him? How dare Tom Riddle refuse his greatness? For who wouldn't want him? He was young, powerful, strong. He was the _best_. And this idiot had left him alone, confused, and out of place in a Muggle orphanage full of weak children who couldn't handle his power. Who had made him feel like a _freak_ for being _better_ than they were. Who had feared his greatness.

Voldemort smiled at Tom, whose eyes were wide with fear and confusion. He slowly brought his hand up, and pointed the borrowed wand directly at his unworthy father.

"_I am great._" He hissed, and shot a jet of green light directly into his heart.

**A/N **_**not suitable for children under the age of 13:**_

**Tequila:** --SULKS--

**Justin:** Tequila, look... a voldemort oneshot!!

**Tequila:** --SULKS--

**Justin:** And ice-cream!!

**Tequila:** --SULKS--

**Justin:** And a half naked Sirius Bl--

**Tequila:** GIMMIE!!"


End file.
